The SWEET Family Experiences Weren't Always Sweet

In my previous post, I wrote about the discoveries I made when my husband and I visited the Montour-Sweet Cemetery in Sweet, Idaho. We enjoy visiting the graves and reading headstone engravings. Every single one tells a story. I photograph as many as I can on a single visit and upload the ones who are members of families who are listed at familysearch.org.

Our most recent visit to a nearby cemetery was to the Mann Creek, Washington, Idaho Cemetery.

I was amazed to find a headstone there that was for a member of the SWEET family!

The headstone on the left above is for Sarah Dreamy Mullenhour Sweet (1858-1906). (Isn't that a cool name?!) At right above is pictured the headstone for her son Bert Sweet (1888-1958). Many of the headstones in this cemetery are marked like Bert Sweet's, with an aluminum plate screwed into a concrete block, with the name and date hand tooled.

As I searched for a listing for each of these individuals on Family Search, I discovered an astounding story! Sarah was married in 1878 to Francis Marion Sweet (1857-1905) and together they became the parents of 10 children between 1878-1900. There were 2 newspaper clippings already entered in the Memories section for Francis Sweet. And they were heart-wrenching. You can read them here.

www.familysearch.org/tree/personal/memories/L85N-C6Q

I'm happy that I'm able to subscribe to Newspapers.com. I searched for Francis Marion Sweet and found an abundance of articles that I was able to add to his Memories at FamilySearch. In brief, this is the story they tell: 

This was published in the Topeka (Kansas) Daily Capital, Dec. 6, 1905. 

I prepared this chart that shows my Cousin Connection to both Ezekiel Sweet, the Founder of the town of Sweet, Idaho, and to Francis Marion Sweet, the subject of this blog post. 

I feel blessed that my interest in Genealogy leads me to discoveries like this. I realize that every person buried in a cemetery has a story besides just the name and dates engraved on their headstone. And one discovery leads to another. So when I found Francis Sweet on FamilySearch, I discovered the events that led up to his death. Further searching of newspaper articles provided very interesting details. The story aroused compassion, sorrow, and my interest in the entire Sweet family, as I gave thought to what Sarah "Dreamy" Mullenhour Sweet experienced toward the end of her life and what their children experienced in their lives.